A very long time ago, 44 years to be exact, I started a personal yoga practice, and pretty much since then, I’ve kept it up.
I admit that my enthusiasm for doing regular practice has ebbed and flowed along the way. Hey, I’m only human. But I can say unequivocally that I’m grateful to have made yoga my life companion.
On this brand spanking new first day of 2014, I’m wondering if perhaps you may have resolved to do more yoga, maybe even regular practice?
You know that I’m going to recommend it. You’re fortunate in this current era of yoga to have so many helpful resources to support you.(I’ve listed several at the end of this post.) In my early days of learning yoga, there were no videos, dvds, tele-seminars, streamed classes, mp3’s, and very few yoga texts. I know, I know, it was the Dark Ages!
If your life in recent times has been rotating between the refrigerator and couch and you’ve finally decided to do something about your sorry state, it probably will take mega resolve to create and keep up your commitment to change.
So, please permit me to offer a little advice for those of you who would like this to be the year when you feature yoga more centre stage, and even to take up home practice.

1. Enlist friends and family by letting them know what you intend to do. It’s much harder to break a promise to a group of people than one that you’ve made secretly to yourself.
2. Make your goal realistic. Everyday yoga practice might be too big a bite to start with, in which case you’ll start to feel dominated by your good intentions. You don’t want to lose your enjoyment of yoga by being overzealous.
3. Try on practising 3 or 4 times a week, but stay with your program for a month. It’s said that doing an activity for 30 days is what locks in that behaviour as a habit.
4. Set regular times when you will do your yoga. Diarise the times, and treat them like an appointment with yourself. If you have to miss a session, re-schedule it, but do it as soon as possible.
5. At the same time, don’t be too rigid. This is, after all, yoga we’re practising. It’s meant to foster mental as well as physical flexibility.

Keep reminding yourself that your resolution is an opportunity, a word which derives from the Latin “opportunus”- ob- ‘in the direction of’’ plus portus ‘harbour’, as in, a friendly wind sailing us into a harbour. How great to look at opportunity in this way?
If you felt tossed around by the ups and downs of 2013, this could be the year when you create a safe refuge for yourself each time you roll out your yoga mat.
Resources:
YogaAnywhere Practice Cards  – The Basics Pack is a self-contained 10-week course, in an easy to use, portable format.
BKS Iyengar: The Path to Holistic Health – A big, juicy book for all seasons, with philosophy, postures, programs. Fantastic value.
YogaGlo – On-line classes with various expert yoga teachers, offering various styles. You can pick the appropriate level for you and duration of it.
Yoga for Grown-ups dvd – My personal favourite dvd by Maria Kirsten. She makes yoga fun, interesting and accessible.
 The Wisdom of Yoga: The Yoga Seeker’ Guide to Extraordinary Living – This is a book to inspire you. Stephen Cope writes about the depth and breadth of yoga in a book that reads like a good novel.
 Yoga Shed ‘ January Intensive’ – A great way to light up your enthusiasm for doing more yoga or practice is to do a longer course, instead of single classes. Find a weekend workshop, retreat, conference or ‘intensive at the beginning of the year to participate in.